Whole wheat pizza dough that works like white flour dough (Edited 10/22/11)

Edited 10/22/11 to add forgotten honey to recipe.

Pizza dough
Leave out the sweeteners in any bread recipe and you've got pizza dough. So I'm going to use my Whole wheat sandwich dough recipe from the earlier of today's post.

Whole wheat sandwich bread (ABM)
1 1/4 cups water tepid water
2 Tbs olive oil (or any oil)
2 Tbs Honey (I used Orange Blossom Honey) Can use sugar, agave, etc.
1 Tbs Vital wheat gluten (Necessary if you want a "foldable" bread, this is what makes the bread have the consistency of store bread and rise to normal heights)
1 tsp salt
3 cups whole wheat flour (I grind my own!)
1 1/2 tsp yeast (I keep mine in the freezer, along with any extra wheat)

Procedure:
Put into bread machine in order listed. Use whole wheat setting and I turn my crust color to "light". I start the machine and watch it to make sure I don't need to add a tsp more water or a Tbs more flour. Depending on your climate you may need to adjust the water/flour to make a proper loaf. It should ball up on the spindle, not be a wet mush on the bottom. It should be slightly "tacky" when you touch the loaf (yes, while it's spinning you can touch it and tell) and the dough should be moving around in relationship to the spindle (not just spinning on top of it). There's some room in between these two points, so don't worry if it's not exact. Don't be too quick to add water to whole wheat. It takes about 4 mins of kneading on my machine before I add flour or water. Mostly, I've needed to add flour, so I cut down on the water in the original recipe. It takes about 4-5 mins for the wheat to absorb the water and equalize out. My dough always looks like it's WAYYY too dry, but then needed extra flour. So I cut the water from 1 1/3 cups to 1 1/4 cups stated and it worked out better for my kitchen.

I left out the sweetener and the milk powder. I think that the vital gluten will help stop the crumbling whole wheat crust will do if it's not in there.
I just found out that you need to add 3 tbs more water to this if you take out honey. The honey is a liquid and I had to replace it. I wasn't getting the proper action on the paddle in the ABM. The dough was just spinning on top of the spindle and not kneading around, so I added 3 Tbs of water and it's working fine. And I forgot to add the lecithin.

We just put the pizzas in. I made one in a 12" cast iron skillet. My son used the rest of the dough to put in a 9x13 pan. They're in a 425 oven for 15-20 mins.

I did notice that the dough, which I forgot about while writing this blog; was stiffer than normal pizza dough. It was wanting to "bounce back" as I tried to put it in the pan. Not really badly, just enough to catch my attention. The dough was left to run the full dough cycle in my machine. I noticed that this dough didn't rise in the cast iron pan, but then, I patted out the dough, topped it and baked it without letting it rise first. With white flour, the dough rises in the oven enough to make a "pan" pizza. With the whole wheat, it made one of "hand tossed" consistency, where it rose a tad, but never thickened. If I want a pan pizza, next time, I'll let it rise for about 10 mins before topping it and baking it.

Ok, this is GOOD pizza. The crust holds together like I thought it would, is tender, yet it's all whole wheat. Flavor is excellent.

Son's comment: "it tastes like regular pizza dough. I really can't taste the difference."

Score one for mom! Nutrition + taste + texture is right.